Ashes
by Sorrow Floats
Summary: Marauder era. Sirius is stuck doing chores at 12 Grimmauld Place, and sets a dangerous precedent for the future. My first fanfic. complete
1. The list

Disclaimer: I own very little, and one of the things I definitely don't own is J.K. Rowling's wonderful and perfect characters and the Harry Potter world in general. This is just for fun. La di da di da. Whee!  
  
Author's note: I've fixed up the story a little bit - a couple new sentences and a few other mistakes worked out, but the story line itself remains pretty much intact. It's still not quite how I pictured it, but it'll do for now, especially since I'm mostly concerned with getting the last chapter of my other story finished before Thanksgiving. (Yeah, right.) A big thanks to all my reviewers and any more comments would be very appreciated, as this is my first attempt at fanfic, and I really don't want it sucking. *giggles madly*  
  
Sirius Black lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. He was wide awake, and yet getting up seemed like a bad idea. A horrible idea, in fact. This summer would be a lot better, he thought, if he were to just stay in bed for as much of it as he could. Not that Sirius had ever had a summer of any decent quality for as long as he could remember. But his summer holidays had been better recently.  
  
After Regulus had begun at Hogwarts, his parents seemed to nearly forget about him. Regulus. Sirius sighed. The shining star of the Black family, sure to follow in his ancestor's refined and honored footsteps. Much of his parents attention was now focused on perfect little Reggie, but that suited Sirius just fine, no matter how much the idea of it -of them- filled him with disgust.  
  
For the past 2 years he had been free to finally go to James's house, or anywhere else, not having to sneak around, not dealing with his father's mighty wrath if he was caught. He was a non-entity in his father's eyes. "Not this week" he said aloud, to no one in particular. This week, his mother was in charge.  
  
The Ancient and Noble House of Black did things the way they had always been done.  
  
"The way things ought to be done", his father was wont to say.  
  
Part of this, a part which Sirius especially did not like, was the idea that the man of the house was in charge, always, no questions asked. So the task of finding appropriate punishments for Sirius's many offenses fell to his father. Mr. Black was a loud and angry man, and a large one, but he wasn't very creative. Sirius had learned over the years the best ways to avoid the older man, stealthily staying under his radar most of the time, and things had gotten much easier the past couple of summers.  
  
But his father was gone for an entire week, off to a conference for the Ministry. What the conference was about, Sirius had no idea, nor was he inclined to ask, but it was probably some inflammatory discussion on the future of Muggle born wizards, if he had to venture a guess. That was his father's favorite topic, it seemed. The "future" of mudbloods, (or lack of it, his father would say).  
  
Sirius ran a hand through his hair - it was about time for a haircut, he noted. He stared at the ceiling, trying to find some sort of pattern in the wood grain until his eyes swam. His main concern now was his mother, who so rarely got the chance to exercise her hatred upon him as freely as she wished. And she was waiting for him to slip up this week, waiting to pounce like a tiger the moment he did anything wrong, eager to prove just how much she hated him, how she disapproved of him. Sirius heaved himself out of bed with a sigh, and quickly dressed, not even bothering to check his reflection in the mirror.  
  
Why should he? It disapproved of him as well - everything in this house did.  
  
He made his way as quietly as he could down the ancient staircase that lead from his attic room to the main floors of the house, listening intently for any signs of life after each careful step. Running into his mother or his brother was inevitable, but he'd put it off as long as possible, thank you very much. When finally he arrived in the kitchen, he exhaled a breath of relief, one he didn't even realize he had been holding.  
  
"Now," he said quietly "for breakfast. Hmmmm." Sirius rummaged around in the cabinets, until he found something suitable, and began to eat as quickly (and quietly) as he could.  
  
"Well look who's finally up. Mother's been looking for you."  
  
Sirius turned and looked up at his brother, who was standing in the doorway, smirking.  
  
"Yeah?" He replied, as casually as possible. "Well here I am, so bugger off."  
  
Regulus stared at him for a moment more with that infuriating look on his face, and then abruptly turned and left.  
  
"That's right, go run and tell mother where I am, so my day can really begin." Sirius grumbled, and angrily stirred his cereal with his spoon, watching the little bits swirl around in the bowl. Not even remotely hungry anymore, he dropped the spoon with a light "clink", and walked out into the drawing room.  
  
He surveyed the dimly lit space for a moment and dropped into a chair in the corner. The chair had seen better days, to be sure, but Sirius was sure it had never been anyone's favorite place to sit, even when it was new. "Nothing in this house is", he thought bitterly. "It was designed uncomfortable."  
  
This made him immediately think of the Potter's house. If Grimmauld Place had been designed with the intention of making visitors ill at ease, then the Potter's little house had been designed with the intention of being as comfortable and welcoming as possible. He shook the thought away; it wouldn't help him get through the next couple of days, and it really was only a few more days. He'd survived three days under his mothers 'care' already, with no major incidents; surely he could get through the remaining four?  
  
He heard his mother coming before she arrived in the drawing room, and a lucky thing, too. Sirius had enough time to grab for a nearby book, 'Great lineages in Wizard History', and pretend to read it. He knew his mother would hardly be convinced; she knew how he really felt after all, but still, appearances counted for something, and him reading (or pretending to) would look far better than him sitting around doing nothing.  
  
She cleared her throat, and gave him a hard stare. Pretending to be surprised at her entrance, Sirius looked up and quickly put the book down.  
  
"Good morning, Mother. I didn't hear you coming" He tried his best to look sincere, although judging from the look on his mother's face, she wasn't buying it.  
  
"Get up a little late today, did you?" She sneered. "Well it doesn't surprise me one bit. You always have been a lazy, ungrateful child."  
  
Sirius didn't bother to respond to this; he knew from experience that she wasn't nearly finished yet.  
  
"Your father and I put a roof over your head, feed and clothe you, and you haven't even the decency to pretend to appreciate it! You, a member of one of the noblest of wizarding families, and you don't even bother to try and act the part."  
  
At this point, Sirius had to use every ounce of his self-control not to roll his eyes. She could go on like this for hours, in that noxious, grating voice. And as a matter of fact, she did go on in this manner for quite some time, before she pulled a piece of parchment from her robes.  
  
"This," she growled, "is a list of the things you are to do today. I will not have my son (the manner in which she spat out the word 'son' with such distaste nearly caused Sirius to dissolve in a fit of giggles.) behaving like a mudblood layabout. And this had all better get done, if you ever want to see scenery outside of this house again."  
  
She thrust the fragment of parchment into his hands, and without waiting for an answer from her eldest son, spun on her heel and briskly walked from the room, the echoes of her heels clicking on the stone floor fading away. The sound of his mother leaving - could there be a sweeter sound? Sirius couldn't think of one.  
  
He stared at the list for a moment, and sighed. Yes, it was going to be a long day.  
  
To be continued. 


	2. Sweat and ashes

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters etc. etc. J.K Rowling does, and I'm terribly jealous. This is all for laughs.  
  
Muck out the pond  
  
Wax the kitchen floor  
  
Alphabetize and categorize all the books in the study  
  
Polish the furniture in the hall, sitting room and the lounge  
  
For the first few minutes, all Sirius could do was stare blankly at the list his mother had given him, though it wasn't much worse than the chores he did for detention at Hogwarts. He heaved a great sigh, and stretched his arms.  
  
"Well, I might as well start from the top of the list, and work my way down." he thought, and headed outside.  
  
It was safe to say that standing waist deep in the small pond in the back yard was about the last thing he wanted to be doing. It wouldn't have been quite so bad, had the day not been so chilly and rainy. He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes for the umpteenth time in an hour, smearing more mud on his face in the process, and got back to work.  
  
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he slogged out of the murky water, and pronounced himself done. Walking back toward the dark and menacing looking house, he pulled the now soggy piece of parchment from his pocket.  
  
"Wax the kitchen floor." He said aloud, although there was no one around to hear him. "Bloody hell." The first order of business, he decided, would have to be a quick shower and a change of clothes.  
  
All in all, the kitchen floor really didn't take all that long, but the fact that his mother had a devoted (albeit nasty) house elf that would jump at the chance to wax the floor for the old witch nagged at him the entire time, and made the job seem quite long. Muscles aching, he set the mop down and decided that now was the perfect time for lunch. He contemplated calling Kreature, and getting a decent meal, but quickly decided against it. No food was worth dealing with that unfortunate being, and besides, he was perfectly capable of making a passable sandwich.  
  
"Having yourself a bit of a break, brother?"  
  
Regulus seemed to have the irritating habit of interrupting him during meals, Sirius noted.  
  
"Come to help out Reg, or just making an ass out of yourself as usual?" Sirius asked. His brother scowled slightly at this, but quickly smiled again.  
  
"Actually" he said slowly, "I just came by to see how you were doing."  
  
"Well, lovely talking to you then." Sirius rolled his eyes. There had to be a point to this, and he wished Regulus would just get to it quickly, and leave him to his misery.  
  
"She has it in for you, you know." Regulus said abruptly. "And you know she'll find something, eventually. You may as well just screw up now, and get it over with, because she needs to prove it, y'know?"  
  
"Prove what?"  
  
Sirius wondered why he bothered to ask. He already knew what Regulus had to say, and he also knew that his brother was right.  
  
"Prove that she hates you."  
  
Alphabetizing the manor's library was not all that bad, although Sirius thought it would be a task better suited to Remus's sensibilities; it was a job for the orderly and precise, and Sirius was certainly neither. Despite this, he found himself not entirely unhappy here, and it wasn't surprising.  
  
The Grimmauld Place study was one of the few places in the house that Sirius felt at all comfortable. One of his happiest childhood memories took place in this dusty old room. He had been 8, or maybe 9, and it had been Christmas time. The whole family had been over, and even before his Hogwarts days this wasn't a pleasant event for him. His uncle and father had begun an arduous debate on.something or other; Sirius couldn't recall what, exactly. His cousin Andromeda had recently begun Hogwarts herself and had been getting the cold shoulder from most of the family due to her "unsatisfactory sorting".  
  
Bored and angry, she had snuck up to the old study, away from the mob of bigoted, slightly drunk relatives downstairs. Sirius had followed her, after a time, and the two of them had spent hours going through the old books, sometimes laughing at what lied within them, or staring in fascination at the horrible and repulsive pictures in some of the 'darker' books. They had sat on the carpet, he remembered, and she had told him all about Hogwarts, while he listened with uncharacteristic attentiveness.  
  
And so the hours in the study passed with a quiet swiftness that Sirius was smart enough to appreciate. After he had moved the last book to its proper place, Sirius stood back appraised the neat rows. They looked almost exactly the same as they did before he'd organized them, and he knew that no one would ever notice, but he felt a small twinge of pride just the same.  
  
He snorted derisively at his own foolishness. Pride for a pointless task, set upon him by his mother, in a house he couldn't wait to be rid of forever - and it would be forever, he promised himself. Once he left, it would be for good, and no force on earth would ever get him back here again.  
  
He checked his watch - 4:45. If he hurried with the furniture, he could be done by late evening and have some time left over to read for a while. He grabbed the Pritchard's Pepperpunch Polish from the cabinet.  
  
"Ruddy polish, on the very top shelf. How typical." He mumbled.  
  
He was feeling decidedly cranky now, and every hardship seemed magnified to him. He decided to start in the sitting room, as it was the room he liked the least out of the three. Better to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. The reason Sirius disliked the room was simple; there were far too many delicate things in it, and Sirius had already broken, or almost broken enough of them to seriously want to avoid going in there, in fear of ruining any more Black family heirlooms. Besides that, it was an imposing room. With dark wooden walls, heavy curtains and more than one picture of a long dead relative adorning the walls, it was not a room that you would ever want to spend time in for fun.  
  
And so Sirius set to getting the shine back into the antique furniture. The polish stunk like hell, and he vaguely noticed a burning sensation where the solution made contact with his skin. He was polishing so quickly that he began to work up a sweat.  
  
This time, Regulus' entrance didn't take him by surprise. Neither of them spoke, for a moment.  
  
"She's in the next room, you know." His brother had an odd, expectant look on his face, and Sirius didn't like the implication one bit.  
  
Casually, Regulus strolled across the room, his eyes searching the space until he found what he was looking for. It was an urn, and had been in the Black family for untold generations. It was almost certainly priceless, and was made even more special by what it held; the ashes of Sirius's great grandfather - his mother's grandfather.  
  
Regulus turned the urn over and over in his hands, and tossed it in the air, playfully.  
  
"It would be a terrible shame if this broke."  
  
"And an even bigger shame if mother's golden boy was the one who broke it." Sirius snapped. But he knew that if something did happen to the priceless heirloom, he'd almost certainly get the blame, no matter what. That's how things worked in the House of Black.  
  
Regulus grinned a sick sort of smile, and with an abrupt, happy movement, kicked a nearby chair. It clattered to the ground noisily.  
  
"Sirius, stop it!" He shouted, in a performance that Sirius hadn't thought his usually unimaginative brother capable of.  
  
"Ouch!" He thumped on the table with his fist, smiling all the while.  
  
Mother would hear it, surely, and they both knew it. And then, almost casually, Regulus let the urn fall from his fingers.  
  
Sirius dove for it, but even his quick Quidditch reflexes couldn't save his cremated grandfather now. The urn hit the ground, shattering into a million pieces, and a great cloud of ash and dust enveloped him as he went sliding through the whole mess.  
  
The dust cleared just in time for Sirius to see his mother striding into the room.  
  
"WHAT IS GOING O-" His mother's voice was cut off by the sight that lay before her.  
  
"You, you.." She stammered, for once at a complete loss for words.  
  
It was then that Sirius realized just how bad this looked. Had he let the vase fall, and not tried to catch it, he could have claimed innocence. He may not have been believed, but he could have protested his guilt, maybe wormed his way into a lesser punishment.  
  
But he was sitting in his great grandfather, and there was no way of getting around that. He was covered head to toe in ash, hunched over on all fours in the middle of the room. And Regulus had come out clean, no, better than clean. Regulus would be the victim - of course he would be! After all, his brother had planned it that way, and planned it well. There was no two ways about it - the little bastard had outsmarted him. There was no point in even trying to deny his guilt.  
  
Indeed, the more Sirius thought about it, the funnier it seemed. It was so ironic, so beautifully horrible, that he began to giggle, and once he began, there was no stopping him. Even the murderous look on his mother's face didn't put an end to the torrent of laughter, which was coming, unbidden, from his mouth.  
  
This was going to be the longest summer of his life, and there was nothing he could do about it but laugh.  
  
The End. 


End file.
